


Memory

by Wanderbird



Series: Fragments [3]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Gen, Not Beta Read, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Stand Alone, link wakes up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 07:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21388348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderbird/pseuds/Wanderbird
Summary: Link did not remember who he was.There was the voice, of course, when he first woke up. “Open your eyes,” it bid him, begged him. “Open your eyes.”“Wake up, Link!”In which Link wakes up in the Shrine of Resurrection.
Series: Fragments [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1525865
Comments: 6
Kudos: 105





	Memory

Link did not remember who he was.

There was the voice, of course, when he first woke up. “Open your eyes,” it bid him, begged him. _“_Open your eyes.”  
“Wake up, Link!”

And the world had filled with light, or else darkness had retreated from his vision, and suddenly he existed again. He did not remember the world as being this blue. He didn’t remember the world at all. But he did as the voice asked, because something told him the voice was important, and the strange blue goop retreated from his body.  
He could move, again.

Link began with the smallest of movements, testing the limits of his unfamiliar body. His neck tensed. With great effort, he twitched a toe. And from there, it was easier—in but a few seconds, he had levered himself to sit stiffly in his tomb. Looked around. Wherever he was, it was dark and shadowed, where the blue lights were not. Link was glad. It hurt his eyes a little less, this way, unused to seeing as they were. Cautious, Link clambered out of the bed, and hopped to his feet. That was not so bad. Easier than it could have been, and for once it didn’t hurt.

Link took a step.

It still felt strange, weight landing on his feet. And the floor, too, was strange, curved and smooth beneath his toes. But it didn’t hurt! How could that be, when all he remembered before the darkness was pain, and burning?

There was a light. Blue, like always, but smaller, in the corner of the room. He knew what to do with this. Didn’t he? Absently, Link stumbled toward it. It was just about chest high, tucked beside what he recognized as a closed door, with a length of dry and wrinkled leather hanging off it. Maybe the pedestal would open the door? It took a few moments, once he reached it, to get it to work. He examined the pedestal, until the blue lit up brighter at the touch of a fingertip, and the same voice as before rang out, clearly coming from the pedestal. Not her, then. Not that he remembered who “her” was.

“This is a Sheikah Slate,” the pedestal explained. “Take it. It will help guide you after your long slumber.”

It extruded something wide and flat, with a familiar eye traced in lights on its back. Link flinched. But when the slate did not move further, he eventually touched it with one fingertip, and took it gingerly in hand as it lit up.  
A Sheikah Slate.  
To guide him.  
_Her _Sheikah Slate, in fact, the same "her" that was speaking. Or who had recorded these messages at some point in the past, he supposed. Wasn't that how these devices worked? But the slow blinking of orange lights on the back of the Sheikah Slate soothed his rattled nerves, and Link strapped it to the belt looped over the pedestal, and wrapped the belt around his waist.  
It was cold, in here.

But then the pedestal moved, and flattened, and there was a rumbling—the door! Link eased his way through it, and peered around this new, darker room.

There was a chest.  
Two chests, in fact, looking old and worn but entirely intact. Link crouched to open them, and found within a shirt and trousers, as threadbare as the chests, and precious shoes as well. These, too, soothed him. When he took off the belt and slipped it on, he found they were a little small—but comfortable nonetheless. The shoes fit best, as they had lacing to adjust their size. And if nothing else, he was no longer quite so cold.

Now that Link was dressed, he turned to the next door. This door too was closed, but in front of it there stood another pedestal, this one glowing orange. Perhaps it wasn’t working? Link gave it a shot anyway, and when his hand touched it, the pedestal began to speak in that same, familiar voice.

“Hold the Sheikah Slate up to the pedestal. That will show you the way.”  
He obeyed, and sure enough, the pedestal was overcome with blue. A different voice answered. “Authenticating… Sheikah Slate confirmed.”

This time, when the door rumbled open, Link wished he _had _cringed away from it. Light flooded his safe little chamber, bright and gold and burning on the eyes. But the familiar voice spoke again, grief hanging in its tones for some reason he could not fathom.

“Link… You are the light—our light—that must shine upon Hyrule once again. Now go…”

As his eyes finally started to make out shapes beyond that light, it trailed off.  
Go and save Hyrule.

Whatever that was.

Link began to wander forward.  
The passage beyond this door was not as well-kept as the rest of the cave. It dipped, in one spot, to leave liquid on the ground which Link recalled was _water. _He edged around the edges of the puddle with care, so as to not get these old and fragile shoes too damp. The last obstacle before he left the passage was a cliff, and that took Link a moment to decipher. But there were sections of rock jutting out from it, such that Link found it relatively easy to clamber up its face and into the light, damp stone hard against his fingers and scraping along his knees. As soon as the light touched him, Link’s heart began to race.

Light!

Air, that smelled so much better, so much more true than the stuffy air inside his cave. It smelled like sweet adrenaline, and with a choked-off cry, Link jogged across the grass. Grass! And flowers, tickling his bare ankles as he passed! And wind, and light, and—  
Link gazed out over the edge of his spit of land, and a sense of wonder overcame him. _The land is huge! Surely, _he thought, _no person could ever be able to see it all. _Followed, shortly, by another thought. _  
I want to see it all. _

Link did not remember who he was.

But standing here, gazing out at the great big world beneath him, he felt okay with that.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


End file.
